Sugar is the Devil. In the 80's and 90's we were told it was dietary fat, but now we know differently. Sugar is one of the most addictive substances on earth. So how do you break up with it?
Go on, admit it, you need to break up with sugar. Cam and Amelia have had love affairs with sugar, so you aren't alone. In this episode, we talk about all kinds of sugar and how to recognize them. I know breaking up with sugar feels like losing your best friend, but you can do it!
02:23 Spouse, gummy worms, sugar addiction, bad.
05:09 No longer need you. Forget you.
08:12 Past life teaching 1st grade, moon+sugar=amped kids, stress control.
11:45 Make your own granola with healthy ingredients.
12:35 Stomachache from sugary organic Clif builder bar.
17:00 "Journey similar to yours, learning about healthy food."
19:24 Sugar leads to aging and disease.
23:34 Starting CrossFit, earned ice cream. Changed habits during chaotic life.
26:02 Approach same, evaluate, possibly discard, occasionally indulge.
29:06 Love it. Right, sweetness from friends. Good convo. Enjoy holidays on/off plate.
Other Names for Sugar:
Stay Connected!
Amelia
Cam
Midlife Mommas IG: https://www.instagram.com/midlife.mommas/
Please share, rate, and review the podcast. We appreciate you! ❤️
Sugar is the Devil. In the 80's and 90's we were told it was dietary fat, but now we know differently. Sugar is one of the most addictive substances on earth. So how do you break up with it?
Go on, admit it, you need to break up with sugar. Cam and Amelia have had love affairs with sugar, so you aren't alone. In this episode, we talk about all kinds of sugar and how to recognize them. I know breaking up with sugar feels like losing your best friend, but you can do it!
02:23 Spouse, gummy worms, sugar addiction, bad.
05:09 No longer need you. Forget you.
08:12 Past life teaching 1st grade, moon+sugar=amped kids, stress control.
11:45 Make your own granola with healthy ingredients.
12:35 Stomachache from sugary organic Clif builder bar.
17:00 "Journey similar to yours, learning about healthy food."
19:24 Sugar leads to aging and disease.
23:34 Starting CrossFit, earned ice cream. Changed habits during chaotic life.
26:02 Approach same, evaluate, possibly discard, occasionally indulge.
29:06 Love it. Right, sweetness from friends. Good convo. Enjoy holidays on/off plate.
Other Names for Sugar:
Stay Connected!
Amelia
Cam
Midlife Mommas IG: https://www.instagram.com/midlife.mommas/
Please share, rate, and review the podcast. We appreciate you! ❤️
That's it. I'm over this. I'm giving you up forever. Hi. I'm Cam, Holistic health coach, mom to 2 humans and 4 pets. Hi. I'm Amelia, laboratory scientist by day and food scientist by night. Welcome to our show. Join us as we share our holistic approach to life after 50. You can expect real life stories with a dash of humor and a ton of truth. If it happens in midlife, we're going to talk about it. So hit that subscribe button and follow along. We're the Midlife Mommas. What are you giving up, Cam? Sugar and I are breaking up again. I've had enough. I understand. You know, isn't it one of those relationships you have where you get back together and then you're like, I can't take it anymore? It's like a toxic relationship. Right? In the classic sense of the word. Yeah. And I and lately, I feel like I've been on the right track. There have been a few times when Dan's like, let's go get ice cream, and I'm like, oh gosh. But it hasn't I haven't gone down the slippery slope, but believe me, I have gotten down the slippery slope before. How about you? Yeah. I think yeah. I think we both have. I think we both had times where, you know, we've been addicted to sugar. And the thing about it is it's so insidious. It, like, it's just like, oh, I'll just have this 1 cookie, and then it's like you can't get anything out of your brain except for the coo like, another cookie and another or the ice cream or whatever. It is a hard habit. I mean, I'm serious. It's like a toxic relationship, so I don't you know, if you've ever had a toxic boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, it's, like, 10 times worse than that. Totally agree with that. And there was a time period in my forties that I was eating jelly beans and candy corn. So candy corn's seasonal, but jelly beans weren't. And I didn't like the fancy ones, Amelia. I like the junky $1 Kroger brand ones. Colored sugar is what I used to call it. And literally, I felt like they I would do this whole mind thing. I'm gonna go shopping at Kroger. I'm not gonna go down that aisle. But that aisle was the candy aisle that went from the back of the store to the front of the store, and I swear to goodness, I would talk myself out of going through that aisle and then I'd go through the aisle, and then I'd see the belt jelly beans and, like, then they end up in the cart. So I will, like, intimately know what it feels like to give it up. Spouse. What you mean. I was a, sour gummy worm girl. And sometime in the probably early 2000. I was friends with the cafeteria manager at the place where I work. He bought me, like, a 5 pound bag of those things. And, you know, at the time, this was I guess, we were through the whole fat free craze maybe, but I still didn't know what an insidious satanic monster that sugar was. And, I mean, I just ate it, and I just I didn't know how bad it is. So, obviously, folks, you can tell we're gonna be talking about breaking up with sugar. We've got a lot of really good tips for you, obviously, some personal stories in there. And we got a lot of really good information, that I don't know that is you may or may not know about sugar, so I think this is gonna be a good one. Yeah. Well, let's start off with the multiple names of sugar. So it has a lot of sneaky little names. And, when you're looking at the ingredients, don't ignore the front of the package because they lie. It's all marketing. It's healthy. It's fat free. We already know about fat free. Fat free. They've junked up everything with sugar. But the easiest way is to look for words that end in ose, o u s o s e. Sorry. That's right. That's right. So the easy ones are sucrose, which is just your basic table sugar. Glucose is the substance in our bodies that our muscles use, and fructose is fruit sugar. But there's a ton of other o's that you need to look out for. Yeah. And some are natural, you know, like maple syrup and honey. You know, those are still sugars, but they are or agave is another one, brown sugar, any kind. There's all kinds of sugars. Obviously, if it has the word sugar, that's giving it away. Right. Exactly. And honey, like, I still believe in consuming honey. Honey can be great if you get it locally, or, you know, that's produced locally. It's great for seasonal allergies. So there are places and the, honey doesn't tend to spike your blood sugar like other types, but it's still a sugar substance. So, you know, you have to be very careful. I think there's better or worse choices, but the bottom line is sugar in general can be quite detrimental. Yeah. And, and I'm not, like, I like I I just bought honey today at Trader Joe's. And I'm going to use maple syrup in my pumpkin pie I'm making later this week. So Yeah. It's just see it's just being aware and, like, we're you know, reading the labels and saying, oh, I'm choosing this rather than it exactly sneaking into your life. Yeah. Fucking humans. Jumping into your grocery cart. I know, really. And all the times I tried not to. And then then I knew I was, like, over it, Amelia, when I went down that aisle. I'm like, yeah. Forget you. I don't need you anymore. Forget you. For sure. I think for me, Kim, that forget you point was when I ate something that made my stomach hurt. Like, at for years, I consume sugary products and it didn't bother me, like, digestively. And then I reached a point where I would eat something and it would just I was like, oh, you know, that feels really crampy, but, but globally, sugar consumption is really high. Historically, you know, sugar was discovered as part of of sugarcane, so we have that, but it was very rare. Like, you know, couple 100 years ago, that was a super duper treat. But the average person consumes around 17 teaspoons of added sugar daily. And that is crazy, Cam. If you've measured out 17 teaspoons, I bet you'd be shocked at at the volume of that in a bowl. Yeah. Like, literally close your eyes and imagine scooping out 17 teaspoons. That's crazy. That's a heaping. Yeah. It's a lot. Yeah. And, you know, the thing about it is, sugar I I wanna talk about sugarcane for a minute. So every year, we've been going down to Saint John, and Saint John was they were known for their sugarcane. So there are all these remnants of these sugarcane mills on the island. It's really cool, and they used to make a lot of rum there. So Oh, yeah. So Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Anyway, rum's very sweet. I tasted that last year. I won't be tasting it this year. Girl. I mean, it it is a fun fact. And, you know, like a lot of things, we genetically or evolutionarily speaking, things that were hard to come by by the cave woman were kinda built in to wanna crave that. So now with lots of these nutrient well, I say nutrient loosely, a food source, a calorie source being so easy to get by, you know, we we've lost that sense of proportion because we don't have to fight to get that tiny bit of sweetness anymore. When you think about seasonal too, like, when you needed more energy in the warm months and you're outgoing more, guess what's available fruits, and fruits have a natural form of sugar. It's very interesting how it all works and then we've hijacked all of that. Now we have it available all the time, all year. Yeah. So we know that sugar gives you a a quick, energy boost, and we also know that if you consume too much, it leads to an energy crash. Have you ever had a crash before? Oh, 100%. And it's kinda like one of those things when you first eat the cookie or whatever it is with the added sugar, you feel great. It's like a dopamine hit or an endorphin rush. And then once you've processed it, it almost has a depressive effect on me at least. Maybe I'm and I am unique in that way, but definitely, there is definitely a crash and there is physiologic, it's physiologic. It's not, you you know, you're not crazy when when these different things happen to you when you when you eat and then don't eat sugar. Yeah, my past life when I taught 1st grade, it was like I remember 1 year it was a full moon and Halloween was during the school week, and you're like, oh my goodness. We've got kids amped up on the moon energy, and then we've got this then we've got all this added sugar. Yeah. So sugar definitely makes you high energy, but it also crashes you. And we know in midlife, like, controlling your stress is 1, but controlling your insulin response is another dial mover. Those are huge dial movers. So when we're eating a lot of sugar, you are gonna stress out your body because your body's like, what the heck? How am I gonna get rid of all this blood sugar? So Exactly. And I wanna go back to what you said about fruit. Because in the summer, when we have fruit, which has fructose in it, which is sugar, a form of sugar, a lot of those fruits are also filled with water. You think of watermelon, even berries. They're they have a high water content. So it mitigates that so that fiber in the fruit, and the water in the fruit helps us feel fuller. But in the winter months because, you know, we're recording the week before Thanksgiving, you know, we tend to use a lot of dried fruits in our holiday preparation and that is literally concentrated sugar. Like, literally I mean, I love yeah. I love dates. I use dates actually in one of my recipes. It actually I grind them up with some nuts and make a crust. It's delicious, but it's literally concentrated sugar. So if you use raisins in your recipes or craisins, which are the dried cranberries, and you have to look really closely at that it'll tell you there's sugar in there as well. So just be careful because literally you're concentrating it down so the more of those volumes that you use the the bigger the sugar the sugar hit. Totally. And and even though it's a dried fruit, I don't know why in the world they would add oils and sugar, but you gotta read the labels. Because I know if you buy the whole dates, then you can get it without added sugar because they're already sweet enough. But if you buy the chopped dates, I remember them having added sugar. It's absolutely insane to me. So you really, truly have to read it. I used to eat dried mangoes all the time when I was crossing the in the forties. It was so good. It was like it was like, beef jerky of the fruit world. So good. Well and, you know, I mean, I've seen, dried papayas as well. So you feel like that you're healthy because this is fruit. Well, you know, that's like some manufactured, energy bars, if you will. They're candy bars. I mean, let's be honest. So Oh, yeah. You know, but you have to be very careful and very mindful and conscious of what you're doing. Yeah. So let's talk about hidden sugars and processed foods because you are being marketed too. We are being marketed too, so never trust the front label if it says healthy or low fat. We know low fat was a big fat lie or healthy or any of those words, you gotta turn the package around and actually read the the ingredients, like, where it says what it's made out of, and look for those osse words because there's all kinds of them. And one of my favorite examples, Kim, and I'm not diametrically opposed, is the KIND bars. The KIND bars are really delicious. It's dried fruit. It's nuts. Some of them have a little bit of chocolate drizzle, But they're deceptively high in a lot of things. Fat, which, you know, I'm not opposed to either, but it's not that we can't have those foods. It's just when we blindly believe the front of the package just like you're saying, happens a lot with granola too. I love a granola on some yogurt. Yogurt might be another one you wanna look at because a lot of yogurts have a lot of added sugar. Mhmm. Totally agree with you. Yeah. The my granola, I what I do is I just make my own. I could literally go to Trader Joe's and I buy, like, 4 or 5 different kinds of my nuts, and I read the package because I don't want and then I get the tart cherries, which are dried, but I get the ones without sugar. They have ones with sugar, so you gotta be careful. And then I do get the dark chocolate chips. They're like 72% dark, and I make my own granola and it's so good. It's not really granola. I guess it's more like a trail mix. But I put it on my yogurt, so does it count? Yeah. Yeah. It total it totally counts. But I think that's a beautiful example of a way that you found joy in what you're eating. You're making it yourself, so I would say probably per ounce, it's cheaper. But you have to be careful because, you know, we're all busy. We all like convenience foods. So you have to be care like, that label reading, there's no substitute for that. Yes. And so I think it was 2 weeks ago, I grabbed one of my stepson's builder bars, which are CLIF, which was organic. And I ate it and I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst stomachache ever, and then the next day I read the label and actually posted it inside of the group my group, and I was like, no wonder my stomach hurt. Like, no wonder I didn't sleep. When I read through it, the first 5 ingredients, I would say the first 3 or 4 of the 5 were sugars, and there was all kinds of ways. And I was like, okay. So I used to eat those in my forties. They were builders parts, 20 grams of protein. If you've read just the front, and I did. I was just like, I'm gonna eat this, and then I regretted it. So, anyway, turn the package over. Yeah. And I've done the same I've done the same exact thank Cam, and I fly and and it's usually that biofeedback for me that is, like, there's something wrong. Maybe I should have looked at it, you know, beforehand, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. And that's it. So, you know, I even if you know, stuff happens. Let's just say that. Exactly. Yeah. And the people that produce this sort of mass produced food, they employ scientists. They employ people that have done all sorts of market research and focus groups. They've engineered these packaged foods to be, hyperpalatable is the word they use. Hyperpalatable. Like, you want it, you crave it. And there there is a combination of Sugar and fat and sugar, fat, and salt that is I think it's the bliss point, isn't it, Cam? Isn't that what it's called? So, you know, this isn't accidental, and they have no qualm about saying on the front of the package, healthy granola or healthy bar you know, protein bar, knowing full well that what they've put in there is just gonna make you want more and make you, you know, give you a a sugar spike and a crash and or make you fat. Like, they don't have any problems about that whatsoever. No. And the thing is you crave it, but you're never satisfied because Right. Let's let's flashback. Have you ever eaten, like, a whole package of Oreos or something like that? Sure. Have you? I know I have. Yeah, you're never satisfied. You, like, literally go and you keep going and then it's gone and you're like, I'm not even satisfied, and I just ate all this junk anyway. And they're vegan, by the way. So, you know, they're vegan. My daughter told me that, and I was like, well, it doesn't really matter. There's nothing in there that's worth it. That's Right. Right. Exactly. And it it really does hijack hijack your brain. So let's talk about tell us about what the effect of sugar is on the brain. Oh, sugar additives, it messes up your reward system. So you're releasing dopamine, and it's, like, very addictive like you're talking about. So it's, like, literally lighting up like a pinball machine, like, doo doo, she got a hit, like, in your brain. Yep. Exactly. Book. And I don't I don't remember who wrote it. I wanna say it was someone that had been in the federal government ferment around nutrition. But the statistic I heard was that sugar is 10 times more addictive than cocaine. They've done all kinds of studies with animals, you know, rats and so forth. So it's been studied. We just are. It's legal. It's a legal drug. So we we're still able to get it in mass in all of the things we buy at the store. Yeah, and this isn't a surprise. Overconsumption leads to all kinds of various health diseases issues like obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease. Dental problems, I love that one. Yeah. Yeah. High sugar can cause inflammation in your body. And in midlife without the estrogen, who is very protective, she's our girlfriend and helps us. Without that, we're more sensitive to things like inflammation. Such a hard truth, man. I mean, I'm telling you, I I can know it and live it and then one cookie, and I'm just off the rails. Duh. But I guess so I this is the way I view it. It's still a win then because you're understanding your biofeedback. Whereas 10 years ago or, you know, you would have just, like, kept going. Like, for example, the Clif Bar. I used to see those regularly throughout my forties. And now at 54, I ate 1, and I was like, okay. I feel horrible. But I didn't know how horrible I felt in my forties because I was doing it every single day. And so when when when you dip your toe back in and you're like, okay. This is why I cut this out. So I just view it as a learning experience. It's still a win, anyway. And I love that you said that, Cam, because my journey has been much like yours, and I've had to learn I don't think I've had to learn how to enjoy and crave healthy food. But as I have gotten my diet cleaner, dipping my toe back in is a lot more painful than it used to be because when your body is used to it, you don't recognize the bad effects. Right? Like, it it's just what you have. And so, you know, I know we've we've talked about alcohol fairly recently, but the same was true for me with alcohol, which also PS turns to sugar. But, you know, you have a couple of drinks a day and you don't realize how And it may be more. I mean, I know when we, when we had our the last talk about this, it was a lot you know, we talked about it in the terms of of of being more more consumption than just a couple of drinks a day. But anyway, regardless of what it is, if you're regularly consuming it, you may not recognize how how bad it is. Yeah. I think taking a break, like, recognizing maybe this isn't the greatest thing for me, whatever it is, whether it's food or alcohol, it doesn't really matter, and then taking a break and then going back to it. And you're like, oh, okay. That's how it really affects me. But when you're living in the inflammation and you're living in the chaos of it all, you don't even see it. You don't even feel it. You don't know how good you can feel until you Right. And I I gotta be honest with you, Cam. You know, talking about excessive. I feel like I probably lived that with exercise too at one time in my life. You know? That overexercise, that really, like, you have to get through the workout, that causes inflammation. And so in midlife, scaling that back a little bit has really been a good thing for me. Totally. And it's just about your mindset. I think I think when you choose your mind, like, change your mind, and then everything kinda falls into place. Anyway, next up, we have sugar causes aging. I have to tell you a Christmas story, cookie story. This was in my fifties, probably 4 years ago, oh, maybe 3 years. I it was probably 50. We have buskin cookies in the area, which are these amazing, I don't know, cookies with, sugar stuff on top and busking. Anyway, I remember being at a Christmas party, and I'm like, I had 1, and then I had 2, and then I don't know how many I had. Literally, the next day, Amelia, I looked gray in the mirror. I was, like, looked tired, and I looked gray. And I was, like, that's gotta be the cookies. Have you ever had that happen to you? Yeah. Absolutely. And mine manifest in, like, dark, like, my eyes look a little bit sunken, so I definitely can relate to that. But, I mean, you know, if you're someone who wants to live with a great amount of, you know, grace and and feeling really good, sugar is not your friend. You know, the process of glycation where the sugar molecule attaches to proteins can lead to the formation of advanced glycation and per and the end products are linked to aging and various diseases. So, you know, that's a little sciency for us, But just to suffice it to say that this glycation literally means to add sugar to. So when you're adding this sugar to all of these other things in your body, you're rusting yourself from the inside out. So that's kind of the down and dirty. Totally. I mean, if I went back to my forties and wore a glucose monitor, I can't even understand what was happening. I know. And and the funny thing is I was, like, super lean. If you looked at me from the outside, I had visible muscle and I was very lean, but what was going on in the inside was not a good thing. There's no doubt. And and I think that's super important, Cam. We've talked about that before, the whole skinny fat. This this kinda goes back to the fat free days. Fat does have a purpose in in your diet. Now I'm not saying it should be 70%, but, you know, our hormones are made with fats. Our there's, fat soluble vitamins. So there there is a balance, but, you know, I was talking to my daughter about this yesterday, the whole skinny fat thing is it is a real thing and I think a lot of people still I I knew I knew a lady. This was probably in the nineties. And at the time, I think she was in her fifties. But she existed on Pepsi Cola and cigarettes. And she was thin as a rail. And I'm like, you know, I mean, I just can't even imagine, like, she seemed to function okay, but it's so far in a way of any kind of lifestyle that I would I would want for myself or anybody I love. So but, yeah. There there's also research showing that sugar has a potential link to, increased mental health issues like, depression anxiety. And in midlife and menopause specifically, we're already battling those things because of our hormone shifts. So if you're adding sugar on top of the hormone shifts, yeah, that could be a thing. Like, if you're feeling sad or anxious, really take a look at what you're eating and see it. I always say, if the food's alive, you're gonna feel alive. And when I go through periods where I'm eating I'm eating out more. I'm traveling. I'm not eating my normal stuff. I don't feel my best. And so it's really just being curious about your health, but that's just an idea. Maybe the anxious and depression is related to the sugar. Take a look. It it could be. And, you know, the sad part, though, is when we do feel anxious or depressed, sometimes we get gravitate to those sorts of food because perceptually, we think, oh, it's gonna help, and it actually makes it worse. It's saying again, drawing a parallel to alcohol, that whole raising the floor, helping you cope. It's gonna help you for 5 minutes, and then you're gonna be down in the dumps again. So definitely not the best coke. Sugar and coping, maybe not. Yeah. When I was an elementary school teacher, I always did not like the teachers that gave out cook like, candy in particular for grades. Or I just really feel like it connects an action to a food. Like, are we linking those 2 behaviors together? And I yeah. So I was never the teacher that gave out the smarties when you get a good score. Even though I love smarties back then, I would not I just just wasn't that. And this is way thirties and forties. This is way before I started my health journey. So anyway Yeah. And I and I think, you know, now that we know a lot about disordered eating. It's a dangerous precedent to reward with food in general. We don't wanna tie Mhmm. Performance goals to eating Because that, in my opinion, we should be eating for health and longevity and survival, not, oh, I performed well. So now I now I get to eat this chocolate sundae or whatever it is. Yeah. When I first started CrossFit, I definitely earned my ice cream. Ice cream was my thing back at the beginning of my forties, when I started exercising, lifting weights, and I remember, oh, I exercise today. I'm gonna go eat my ice cream. And at some point early on in that journey, I'm like, I'm putting all this effort in. Like, what if I change this one habit of ice cream? What would happen then? I remember specifically that shift, and you have to remember, like, that was in the middle of separation, and do I stay married? And I left the classroom, so there's a lot of chaos in my life. And that's the time you would lean on normally that thing, that habit, that sugar. So it was interesting. That's yeah. And that's a great story, and I think it's, you know, I I think you're not alone. I think a lot of people have been in that situation. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, eating your feelings is pretty standardized, unfortunately. Yeah. And we're we're actually, I think it's standardized to a point of almost being encouraged burridge because it's a legal drug that it's okay. But I think we've said this before, feel all the feelings. We're not saying you don't feel the feelings, but the way you cope with that, we can come up with some some better alternatives. And that's just, you know, brings to the next point about mindset. You know, just recognize what sugar is and accept that it's not it's not that your willpower is necessarily bad. Part of this is sugar's addictive. Like, face that and b Mhmm. And understand that so that you're not beating yourself up over over this desire. Absolutely, I love that you wrote it's not a food group in our notes Yeah. Because it's not a food group. I love it. It's not Oh my gosh. You don't need it as a food group. I think I wrote that, Cam, because have you ever seen the movie Elf with Will Ferrell? Yeah. Christmas one. Well, he talks about the food group in terms of candy. Like, the candy canes and the this and the that. And it's just like, oh my god. I love that movie. I think he's hilarious, but that's where that came from. I'm like, No. That's funny. Yep. It's not okay. So we are entering the holiday seasons. Right? And so we're recording this before Thanksgiving and, you know, whatever. So there are gonna be more treats around, and I tell my people, and I believe that you would say the same thing. I'm not gonna avoid the treats, but I'm certainly gonna eat them last, and I'm going to check-in with myself to see if I really wanna bite. And if I want a bite, I'm just gonna have a bite. Like, if it doesn't taste amazing, if it's not awesome, then it's a no. I don't know. I don't know. How are you gonna approach it? Same. And I've literally you know, there's normally, my place that's introduced that where I'm tempted is in the office because people bring those cookies. And I'll look at that tray of store bought cookies and think there's no way that's good. But if I have to have 1, I'll do exactly what you'll say. I'll bite it and say, is this worth this whatever, you know, calories and and sugar that I'm ingesting. And then 9 times out of 10, Cam, I throw it away because it doesn't meet the expectation. Very occasionally, a really good chocolate chip cookie. I'll eat the whole thing. But I mean, you know, those crappy sugar, like, coated Yeah. Christmas cookies that are shaped like the bells and the, you know, stars. No. Not doing that. I mean, it's they're not that good. We have a ton of teachers that listen to this podcast, and I know the teachers' lounge is dangerous right now. I feel for you. But, you know, maybe just put a a pause. I do. I feel for you. Put a pause between you just grabbing it and eating it. Like, do I really want it? And if you taste it and you love it, eat that. Eat it. Yeah. Enjoy every single morsel. If it doesn't taste awesome, get rid of it. It's okay. Don't hurt anybody's feelings. It'll be okay. Right. And, you know, I was just thinking about your teacher friends and how they must get gifts that are food, like, whether it's cookies or candy or whatever. And my mother, bless her heart, she receives gifts like that from friends and neighbors. She's a widow, so people wanna take care of her. And especially in the holidays, they bring her stuff. And if I go visit, she'll say, you can take it or I'm throwing this away. And she's serious. Like, she doesn't mean any harm to to the people. She it's like she recognizes the gift and the love and the gesture. And knowing my mother, she'll pray over it too. But then she didn't have any qualms about ditching it like it's gone. Bless your soul. I bet she says it. I know. I know. Exactly. Like, I really appreciate it, but, you know. And People just, you know, bring and and they really do mean well when they bring the store bought stuff. I love a homemade chocolate chip cookie or a piece of pumpkin I love pumpkin bread actually over pumpkin pie. So there are some things that I think are worth it, but not a lot because it makes my stomach hurt. And I just know how much it's hijacking my everything, honestly. Yeah. I totally agree with you. So I guess that's it. Like, really pause and, like, taste it. And if you don't want it, you don't eat it. We're not there's no shame here. You're just learning about yourself and, like, understanding that that sugar is not a food group. I love it. Yeah. Absolutely. And we've got in our notes a ton of sugar foods. So we'll in, put those in the show notes because I think that's important for people to see, like, what it all is because some of this stuff, some of it's obvious, but some of it's not so obvious. And just know that even when it says natural or unrefined sugar, it's still sugar. So, again, good choices. Yeah. You you know, instead of eating sugar, you should just hang around sweet friends. I love that. That's right. That's right. Get your sweetness from your friends. I love that. So, yeah, I think this has been a good conversation. I hope that you all will pay attention. Enjoy your holidays on and off your plate. But remember, you might need to have a little break up party with Sugar at the end. Thanks for listening today. You can find us on Instagram@midlife.mommas. For all of our other contact info, check out the show description below, and we will talk to you next week.